Michael Matheson scandal response by SNP no better than Boris Johnson - Alexander Brown

There are few more contemptible traits in politics than hypocrisy, and the SNP are full of it.

The Michael Matheson scandal has been a chance to show leadership, integrity and that what is right defines the party’s principles, not who they count among their number.

Instead, the SNP in Holyrood have consistently ducked, dodged and deceived over the incident, rather than taking any kind of responsibility. It is, of course, no fault of his colleagues that Mr Matheson, or his kids, streamed football while on holiday in a cost to the taxpayer.

Michael Matheson has lost salary, but the SNP have lost respect.

His fellow MSPs were not to blame for his choice to incur the cost in December of 2022, but avoid it becoming public until November, and at first insist it was for constituency work.

But once that happened, there was a chance to do the right thing and let Mr Matheson take the fall in disgrace. Humza Yousaf, however – the man formerly known as first minister – said it was a legitimate cost and Mr Matheson should not have to pay the expenses back.

At this point, the scandal is one owned by the SNP, as the truth slowly bled out of the former health secretary, like a caught adulterer seeing if he could just admit to a kiss.

Sure, Mr Matheson has now been suspended for 27 days after MSPs voted in favour of punishing him, but even that was done in spite of the SNP, not really with the help of.

Now under new management, the party could have seen the writing on the wall, and thrown this expensive anchor overboard for misleading the public, and misleading them.

John Swinney decided this was far too rational, and the party has now questioned the legitimacy of the standards, procedures and public appointments committee, because Tory member Annie Wells made comments about Mr Matheson before she voted.

She did this, presumably, because the incident first happened in 2022, and Mr Matheson and the SNP have done all they can to get away with it. For calling a spade a spade, her integrity has been questioned. This rhetoric is dishonest, it’s dangerous and undermines the few methods there are of holding Scottish parliamentarians to account.

It’s also straight from the Boris Johnson playbook. When he was before the privileges committee, they found he deliberately misled Parliament over ‘Partygate’. His response was to label it a kangaroo court, and attack the committee chair Harriet Harman for having "said some things about this matter before reading the evidence".

He couldn’t argue with the substance, so Mr Johnson sought to muddy the waters. The SNP rightly attacked this conduct, yet are now doing the same thing themselves.

The First Minister can’t say what Mr Matheson did was right, but he can raise doubts over the integrity of those who made the decision. Sure it’s bad, but hasn’t he been treated unfairly. Mairi McAllan called it a “political bubble issue”, because the people of Scotland are, of course, not fussed about what happens with their taxes.

This of course comes from the same Government that failed to reply to hundreds of Freedom of Information requests on the ferry fiasco. The SNP like to portray themselves as standing up for Scotland’s values, but in this scandal have only stood up for themselves.